


Cvilidreta

by cirque



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Rumpelstilzchen | Rumpelstiltskin (Fairy Tale)
Genre: IN SPACE!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: 'Rumpelstiltskin'. Never in a million years would she guess that one.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 24
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Cvilidreta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightningwaltz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/gifts).



> With thanks to my Betas, whose names I will add after reveals.

What kind of a name is ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ anyway? She thinks he’s mad; he  _ must  _ be mad. It lives in his bones, probably, in the lithe muscles that move as he dances about the place to the sound of that godawful tapping of his be-socked feet. Rumpelstiltskin. Never in a million years would she guess that one.

Not that it matters now. None of it matters. He’s gone with her child and Tasha’s still wandering the halls of the Cvilidreta with more gold than she knows what to do with. Her husband, ever profit-minded, bought her from her father for her apparent magical gifts: to turn straw into gold using an old Terran wheel. If the gold ever runs out, if the winds of fortune change, he’ll ask her to do it again and then she’s stuck. She has no magic; she’s never had magic. The only magic she knows of is Rumpelstiltskin himself, and he’s long gone to the stars from whence he came. 

Her husband, money hungry, rabid with it, would banish her, she knows. There is not a doubt in her mind. She’s queen by appointment only; one mistake and he can rip it away. He’d almost lost it when the child was taken--his precious firstborn heir. Ellie was a little thing, pretty where her father was not, calm where Tasha was not. She hadn’t even cried when she handed her over.

“Gone?” her husband had howled. “Gone where?”

“Taken,” was her reply, “by a demon, most like.” Truth is, she’d never asked Rumpelstiltskin exactly what he was. In deep space, one came across all sorts of unimaginable creatures, aliens and nightmares and mysterious little meteor-dwellers, barely bipedal, orbiting sundry planets and, she supposed, supping on space dust. He might as well be a demon. Why not?

Her husband had raged, as only one who had never lost anything could rage, but none of it made the slightest bit of difference. He’d called for the ship to be turned around, called for bio scans of any nearby planets, to check every corner of the Cvilidreta for that odd little imp, but Tasha had rested easy. She knew they were long gone; no matter how he searched, he would not find them. No one could. It was magic.

And so Tasha waits away the days, dressed as a queen ought to dress but with a sadness in her chest, a thick heavy weight where her heart ought to be. It fills her body on the bad days. On the good days she is patient, and sweet to her husband, and jovial to the crewmembers that go about their business in the wake of Ellie’s disappearance. They make the sign of the cross when they see her, a peculiar habit, a holdover from the days when humanity lived solely on Earth.  _ He’s the devil _ , they whisper, _ and he’s coming for us next. _

The observation room is empty, as it so rarely is. Tasha swallows down her smile of delight. It isn’t becoming of a queen to snicker, but the temptation is there. She hasn’t always been a queen; once she could laugh and play and, yes, giggle.

She stretches out her yoga mat. It makes a squeaky sound of resistance as it sticks to the metal flooring. She shifts herself into _ agnistambhasana  _ and feels her back resist. It has been far too long since she’s done this. She rearranges her legs and feels the pressure release. She leans back until her head presses against the taut muscles of her right instep. She takes a breath and stares up at the open glass window that takes up the ceiling. 

There are stars, a million and more of them, and the odd smattering of nebulae curving here and there. There are planets too, mostly minute, but some lurk on the horizon, red with dust like Mars of old. They will land on one soon, or so Tasha has heard. They will colonise it, perhaps, if the air is right, but this is not Tasha’s concern. She steadies her breathing.

Somewhere out there is her daughter. The thought infects her with despair and a little hope. She swallows that down, too, feels it take up space in her stomach. She often thinks of Eleanor, these days. She wonders what she’s doing, how she’s grown, if she misses her days in the womb. Maybe she’s walking--how much more must Tasha miss? It is almost Eleanor’s first birthday.

Tasha didn’t mean for it to go on this long. Rumpelstiltskin, the so-called devil, had offered her a fair bargain, as far as bargains went. He would take Ellie, raise her as a miller’s granddaughter ought to be raised, love her and protect her as far as he could manage. Tasha had stayed behind, onboard the Cvilidreta, with a murder to plan. She had handed her daughter over willingly, to what fate she knew not.

It’s a wicked thing, she knows, to kill one’s husband, but she’ll do it. She’s been doing it for a year now, near enough. She sprinkles extra salt over his food, in his bitter coffee, swaps sugar for sweetened poison when he isn’t looking, hoping for a heart attack or something else sudden and incurable. 

She leans back further and feels the pull of her stomach muscles. She stares at the stars above and so she does not see the door slide open, does not see the nervous-looking servant wringing her hands.

“Your Majesty?” 

No matter how many times Tasha tells them not to, they still address her thus. She unwinds herself and sits up straight, the soles of her feet touching.

“Yes?”

“The King wants you. I mean--he wants to see you. Now.”

She sighs. “Where is he?”

“O-o-on the command deck. He means to make a speech about how he’s going down to the planet below. He wants you to accompany him. He says it will make for good news at tonight’s bulletin.”

Of course he does. Tasha shrugs away her tensing muscles and stands. She rolls her mat back up and shoves it back into place in the cabinet against the far wall. She bids farewell to the stars and dutifully follows the anxious servant through the doors and into the uplit corridor beyond.

The lights above are fluorescent, and Tasha flinches under their focus. The carpet gobbles up her stern footsteps. She wishes maybe it would swallow her up, too.

She is not looking forward to this. She never looks forward to anything that reminds her she’s Queen, but going on the first mission to an unknown planet for the sake of good television is, she decides, the worst thing he’s asked her to do yet.

She thinks of poking a hole in his spacesuit, but then she thinks how cruel that is. A death by suffocation must truly be horrid. When did she get so cruel? Before or after she lost her baby? Not cruel, she reminds herself,  _ desperate _ .

“This way,” the servant says unnecessarily as they round a corner. Ahead is a thick metal door, designed for sieges in the old days when they were always at war. The servant swipes a keycard and stands back as the door slides open mechanically. Tasha braces herself.

The deck swarms with people, navigating around each other like efficient droids. It’s always busy here, and Tasha finds it more than a little overwhelming. Her husband stands at the centre of the hubbub, and he brightens when he sees her.

“Natasha,  _ darling, _ ” he reaches for her and she goes willingly, though he leaves her with little choice.

“Your Majesty,” she curtseys.

“Oh, enough of that.” He takes her hand in his and squeezes until she flinches. The bones in her fingers rub uncomfortably against each other. “Have you heard? We’re sending the first mission down. Isn’t that exciting?” Another squeeze of her fingers. She knows what he wants.

“Very exciting,” she agrees, “But is it wise for the King to be among the first wave?”

He scowls at that, and her fingers suffer for it. Rumpelstiltskin might be mad, and Tasha may be desperate, but her husband is evil.

He smiles, malice beneath the surface of it. “I think I’ll decide what’s wise and what isn’t, yes?”

She nods. There is little else she can do.

“Are we ready to livestream?” her husband asks, and slithers his arm around her, pulling her in close. “Now, Natasha, please  _ smile _ . If you can manage that.”

She plasters her best smile across her face. It is fake and sickly but it’s what he wants, and she’s gotten good enough at it over the past two years.

Someone says “yes, sir,” and then there is a camera pointed in her face, red light steadily blinking. Someone counts down from five and her husband’s entire body changes: he slips through a frightening transformation from benign king to confident military leader. It makes her flinch.

“Good morning!” is his opening. “I’m sure there is no need to remind you of our current situation. We have, praise God, arrived at a habitable, breathable planet. Yes, I’ll let that sink in. Our days of pilgrimage might just be over. It has been a long millenia since we left Earth, and now we are rewarded. The planet, nicknamed Planet B, has a nitrogen count of seventy-three percent, and oxygen of twenty per cent. It is a hot planet, humid, with a thick atmosphere and gravity slightly surpassing that of Earth’s. What that means is: we can feasibly live there.”

He takes a moment to let this sink in, and Tasha nods solemnly. 

He clears his throat. “I am leading a mission to the planet’s surface tomorrow morning. I will be accompanied by our military personnel and, of course, my wonderful wife. We want to make this clear: this could be our new home, for those willing to settle. You have a decision to make, citizens: you may continue on the Cvilidreta into deep space or remain with the colony on the planet.”

Tasha wonders which option he’s chosen for both of them. She wishes he hadn’t sprung this on her. She’s too nervy and full of questions.

“The mission commences early tomorrow, oh-nine-hundred hours,” he carries on. “We will, of course, bring a camera crew to document this momentous occasion. I’d be delighted if you’d tune in.” He smiles a picture-perfect smile and Tasha does her best imitation, then the camera clicks off. He relaxes, dropping the pretense. The smiles go out. She sighs. She hates being Queen.

He still has his arm around her. “So? What do you think? Are you excited?”

He has never cared what she thought these past two years, and she doesn’t understand why he wants to start now. She shrugs. “As long as it’s safe…”

“Yes, yes.” He sounds annoyed. “Perfectly safe. We have the greatest team this side of Earth. You’ve seen them at work; they’re arguably the best military in the galaxy.”

She has seen them, yes, and they are vainglorious fools. All the ruling class are. But she nods at him as though there is nothing wrong with the world. “They are, I’m sure.” With any luck, he won’t survive the trip.

They don’t share a bed. He’s all about appearances, but that does not stretch to physical intimacy, with which she is in complete agreement. He’s touched her before--else they wouldn’t have Eleanor--but he was heavy-handed and mean and makes no secret of his dislike for her. He only married her for the gold, for the headlines in the papers--for the heir, and look how that had turned out.

So, she sleeps alone, which is great. She has premium quarters at the back of the ship, with a window directly looking out into the stars. She wishes on them more than is probably sane, but they never come true. She wishes for Ellie, always and invariably. 

Tonight she wishes for her husband too. Let the shuttle malfunction, let his oxygen mask fail, let the whole thing go up in flames as they navigate the gravity sphere. It won’t even matter if she dies too, not really. Anything to rid the world of him.

She leans into the plush pillows. There’s little of comfort onboard a military refugee ship, but these pillows are heavenly. She unknots her hair, teasing free the little braids, and places the elastics on the little shelf beside her bunk for tomorrow.

It hasn’t always been this way. Once, the prospect of marriage had filled her with hope. She had been but a daisy-scented girl, foolish, but hopeful. It was only later that she realised what her father had done, what lies he’d concocted, how the marriage was more of a transaction. Her husband, the charming King, had practically purchased a gold mine. She’d transferred to the eastern wing that functioned as the royal court that first night, and she’d never seen her father again. God only knows where he’s gone. She doesn’t wish him ill.

But there had almost been tenderness in their marriage. He’d kissed her after the ceremony and it had been right, how things ought to be. Her dress had been gold, her shoes studded with glinting foil, the rings that lined her fingers smacking of decadence, but the kiss--that was normal. You could almost overlook the fact that they were strangers. He’d lifted the veil (also gold) and pressed his lips to hers, and she had smiled. It was beautiful; everyone said it.

He’d been careful in the beginning, the way those sorts of men often are, not to frighten her. He wanted the heir, wanted her healthy and happy for the pregnancy. There were doctors on the ship, of course, but resources were limited. They couldn’t afford a high-risk pregnancy.

But he was, after all, a king, and he had seized that throne through corruption and greed, and the shine of their marriage soon wore off. Rumpelstiltskin taking the baby only made things worse.

Tasha shivers in her bed. The last bruises are almost faded, you can almost mistake her for a regular queen. She doesn’t cry much anymore, but still. It hurts. She closes her eyes and prays for restful, decent sleep. It doesn’t happen. 

Instead: she dreams of a cackling little man, screeching at his own jokes, tapping those relentless slippered feet in time to some tune only he can hear. He holds her daughter aloft. “Look at my princess,” he giggles, “mine, mine,  _ mine. _ ” Oh Ellie. She cries. Why had she ever trusted that demon with her most precious treasure? What had she been trying to achieve? She only wanted to save her from the king, was all. It seems she’s passed her from one monster to another. Ellie didn’t ask for this, but then, who ever does?

She wakes to a servant bringing her breakfast.

“Oh!” she gasps, still half-dreaming.

“Good morning ma’am,” says the serving boy, Joseph. She’s seen him before. He’s a thin stringy beanpole, taller than her by several feet and likely still growing. He smiles at her, genuinely kind. “I brought your breakfast. Porridge, and orange juice fresh from the aquaponics lab. I fetched it myself.” He rests the tray on her little table.

She hauls herself upright. Her muscles protest from the yoga the day before. She berates herself for not practicing more often. Her back twinges. She reaches for the carton of orange juice. It’s bitter, and there’s pulp, which she swishes about her mouth. They don’t have real oranges in the lab, just some vague sort of genomed citrus, but it’s all the same thing, isn’t it? It’s a luxury, anyway, one she’s grateful for.

“Wonderful, thank you,” she tells Joseph. He seems to be waiting for something. “Spit it out, lad.”

He wrings his hands. “I’m supposed to wait ‘til you’re finished, Your Majesty, and escort you to the shuttle. You’ll be leaving at oh-nine-hundred hours.”

Right. The mission. For one glorious moment, she’d forgotten. “Ah. Well, I can find my own way.” She gives him a smile, a queenly smile that she’s practiced in the mirror, a smile for putting people at ease.

It doesn’t work. “All due respect, ma’am, I’ve got my orders.”

“Alright, alright.” She pulls the porridge closer. It’s still hot and Joseph, bless him, has sprinkled a mountain of sweetener on top just how she likes it. On Earth, in the old days, they used to have it with sugar, or sometimes salt. She swallows it down, burning her throat.

“What do you think of the mission, Joseph? If all goes well, will you be among the settlers?”

“I’ve a contract, ma’am. I’m contracted to the ship. Where it goes, I go.”

It’s a sad life and she feels guilty for bringing it up. This boy is owned by the royal state, and he is deprived of choice, in much the same ways that she is. At least she has a golden cage, if there must be a cage at all.

She finishes off her meal in silence. Joseph inspects her flooring. His posture is textbook as he tries not to sag under the monotony of standing there. He deserves a promotion.

Tasha still isn’t certain whether or not her husband will decide that they are staying on the planet, or if he’s sticking with the ship too. She supposes she’ll be the last informed, as usual. She slips her 3D printed shoes on and hauls her overdress over her shoulders. It is heavy and inlaid with little stones, precious gems farmed from various planets over the years. On the clasp around her neck there is one that is the deepest red she’s ever seen, bloody and glorious. 

It gives a weight to her throat, and serves as a reminder of the weighty task she has ahead of her. She can do this. She swallows her fear down. There’s a knife tucked in the bones of the bodice, just in case. It was a gift from Rumpelstiltskin. It holds a curse, or so he says, something ancient. No wound it creates will heal, all the doctors on the ship be damned.

She follows Joseph out of her quarters. The ship is silent, eerily so. They’ve been in orbit above the planet for several weeks now, and it seems everyone has gravitated to a television screen in order to be able to witness the broadcast. Live, she thought, they can all watch me kill him  _ live. _ Such thoughts are frightening. She is no killer but, god, she hates him. She isn’t sure how she’ll do it, but she’ll make sure to be out of camera shot. She needs this to be secret. She needs to slip away in the aftermath and call out to Rumpelstiltskin. She needs to reunite with her daughter. 

The shuttle room is a mess of activity: soldiers coming in from the locker rooms, ordering themselves into formation; journalists scoping out quotes from anyone and everyone; the royal retinue suiting up the precious King. Tasha crosses the room, and the crowd parts for her. They avert their gazes in respect and in fear. 

They’re right to be afraid of her: she’s going to kill their king. It has to be today, the hubbub and the activity is bound to act as a decent distraction. They’ll never suspect her. Why would they? She’s his wife.

He pulls her into a performative hug, and presses his cold thin lips to her cheek while she tries not to recoil. “Thank you for joining us,” he says, “We have quite the journey ahead of us.”

“I am looking forward to it,” she lies. All her life has been spent on the Cvilidreta and still she fears space travel. It’s easier on the big ship to forget you’re out in the expanse and the infinity--but taking wing in a glorified puddle jumper and landing on an alien planet is not her idea of a fun time.

Someone rushes forwards and helps her wriggle into a space suit. It’s leather, or something that feels like leather, snug but comfortable. The attendant explains the hows and whats of the suit: the heat regulators, the waterproofing, the kevlar-plated chest and toes. She nods in disinterest.

The jumper, a round-edged chrome jet, is open and waiting for them. The entire left side lifts up and functions as a door, permitting them entry into the belly of it. The military personnel arrange themselves in a little formation, until eventually it is time for the royals to board.

The seats are upholstered with plush purple velvet, which she thinks is ridiculous, and there is a heavy-looking seatbelt, which she buckles over her waist. Her husband does the same, then one of the royal advisors steps aboard to check both of them. She allows this but, really, how much good would a seatbelt do if the damned thing explodes upon entry?

Checks completed, the pilot comes on over the comms, going through his pre-flight routine. One of the advisors seats themselves beside her. They smile.

The jet begins to vibrate; she feels it in the soles of her feet through her capped boots. The engines roar in her ears. It muddles with the sound of the pilot’s voice. They surge upwards, and there’s a moment where Tasha leaves her stomach behind. She feels a pull in her belly, and her husband groans at the discomfort. They float up and up, and then through the outer doors of the shuttle room, into the black nothingness beyond.

She grits her teeth and tries to ignore that feeling of weightlessness, until eventually the artificial gravity kicks in and her legs are pulled sharply downwards.

“Sorry about the turbulence,” the pilot apologises, and everyone laughs. They’re all uneasy. There is no protocol for how this should go. In the thousand-year journey from Earth, there has never been a suitable planet before. They are quite literally on foreign ground.

The jet does a circle of the Cvilidreta. It looks beautiful from far away, a bundle of lights and shiny windows glinting against the darkness. It’s blocking the sun from this angle and so all the brightness seems to come from within, like the heart of some glowing star. She will miss it, she thinks, if she has to stay on the planet, but then, the prospect of another millenia cutting through deep space is not exactly inviting.

She misses Earth, though she has never been there. She misses the security, the solid ground. She’s heard stories. Everyone has. It was perfect, until it wasn’t. The planet burned and melted, the air got clogged, the sun went out. It is a cautionary tale. “Remember Earth,” they tell the children, “the planet we killed.”

The jet pulls away from the ship and turns towards the planet below. Tasha sees it growing out her window, first a little arch in the corner, then filling the screen. She sees mountains and dunes, all sandy and curved, and valleys of stone and some kind of pale yellow grass. There are meadows of it, actual fields like in the stories, golden in the midday sun.

The ground grows ever closer, and Tasha finds herself looking forward to it. She wants to touch down on this land, to run her fingers through grass (real grass!) and swish her way through the dunes. She wants to feel something real between her toes, something that wasn’t grown in a lab or fabricated by the 3D printer.

“There’s a likely landing spot just there,” says the pilot, “slightly northwest of the big mountain.” He’s pointing but they can’t see. 

The King frowns, then presses his microphone. “Whatever you think is right, Colonel.” 

They go in for the landing. The take-off was shaky but fine, and the main flight has been relatively calm, but it’s the landing that Tasha is dreading. The jet shakes like it’s about to break apart. Her teeth rattle around in her mouth. Is that normal?

The ground swells beneath them. There’s a moment where everyone holds their breath and then:  _ thud, _ they’ve landed. Everyone laughs and the King claps his hands together like a child at their birthday, like the panic is over, but Tasha can still feel it in her chest. There’s something wrong.

Her husband isn’t thinking the same. He unbuckles himself and launches towards the door, clicking his fingers like the rest of them are performing animals. “Alright,” he says, voice high with excitement, “let’s go.”

The military personnel fall into formation, and raise their weapons high. The scans revealed no life forms but, as ever, they’re on the cautious side. Tasha is glad for them, and glad her husband isn’t insisting they go first.

The pilot opens the door and the squadron files out, taking those first few steps on foreign soil. It’s hot, that is the first thing Tasha notices, hotter than the Cvilidreta has ever been, at any rate. There is dust absolutely everywhere, and everything smells of gas, like there’s a leak somewhere. It’s infected the air and Tasha coughs when she breathes it in.

The Cvilidreta’s cleaning droids take care of every last speck of dirt that dares show its face on the ship, and so Tasha has never known the feel of it beneath her feet. There’s soil in the labs but she never goes there. When she steps on it now her feet move beneath her, there’s a crunch and the sound of little sand particles rubbing together. She gasps. She’s worried about falling. Could it swallow her up?

“Weird, right?” her husband says, and they share a childish smile. They don’t have much to smile about together, and it’s weird but nice. Tasha allows herself a giggle.

She makes her footsteps deliberately dramatic, so that she’s really crunching into the ground. She almost falls several times when the floor just seems to melt out from under the capped toes of her boots.

The military personnel are slightly less enthusiastic. They gather around the royal couple like soldiers of old forming a shield wall. The guy in charge of the television camera fights his way through to film their reactions. Their laughter will make for great viewing.

“Look around, everyone. This is our new home. What shall we call it?” The King says this into the camera, and Tasha imagines the million denizens on board the ship are screaming out their responses without hope of being heard. “We’ll come up with a name later, yes? Maybe a competition?” 

Tasha wonders what terrible names people will pick.

There’s a moment when everyone is grinning and taking in their surroundings. The sun is thick with dust, but it’s there shining through; there are mountains in the distance covered in yet more muck; not too far away is a grassy meadow and some kind of murky-looking pond. 

There’s a moment, and then they all flinch, gasping in pain. Something spat up through the ground, sending an electric shock shivering through everyone, like when an outlet got degraded on the ship and needed fixing.

“What was that?” the King asks, and then they all jump again. There’s a sound in the sky and then a huge tower of electricity comes reaching down from the sky, tearing the puddle jumper in two. It smokes and catches fire. They all run backwards.

“What the--” the cameraman wails, but not before making sure he’s got the damage front and centre. 

“It’s lightning!” yells one of the soldiers. “A lightning storm!” 

Above them, the sky screams. It groans like a wild thing contained. It spits out more towers of electricity, each one of them scalding the ground, leaving behind a sickly smell of burning. They’ve had lightning out in space, of course, but on a planet--is it possible? 

The next strike hits the cameraman. A ball of fire hotter than an engine engulfs him, and he crumples to the ground. The camera skids off to his right, forgotten and destroyed. They are no longer being watched.

Everyone scatters, as if being together in one group was attracting the lightning. Tasha doesn’t know much about lightning; it’s never been her concern. Once, in her childhood, her father had been contracted to clean up storm damage to the solar panels, and he’d told her all about it. But it was a distant memory superseded by her nightmares of the past two years. She’s jostled by the movement, and her husband elbows her in the ribs, and she falls with a grunt.

She stares right into the cracked screen of the camera and sees that her face is pale with shock. All she can hear is yelling, incessant yelling, and yet she’s never been thinking clearer. This is it, she tells herself, this could be it. This is how he dies.

She crawls in the only direction that makes sense,  _ away, _ but she knows there’s no running from the sky. A few more bolts strike the ground where she was laying, and she swears, so unlike a queen, but then she’s never been one for pretending.

She makes her way to the grassy area. It is a welcome softness beneath her sore hands and ragged knees. She pushes herself into a sitting position and looks around. There, by the ruined jumper, is her husband, flocked by army members. It looks like they’re trying to usher him away from the source of danger, but what protection can they offer against electricity? The pilot is hovering around the cockpit. She assumes he’s trying to raise someone on the radio, but it’s useless. The cameraman’s body lays forgotten on the dirty field, still smoking.

Another bolt hits the shell that was the jumper, and the soldiers and the King jump back as one. Their hair is standing on end. The whole thing is ridiculous and Tasha feels a giggle pulling itself free from within her. She’s sitting there in strange grass on a strange planet, potentially watching the man she hates die. She’s hysterical, she can tell, but it’s still so funny.

Water starts to fall from the sky, like an endless shower. Is this rain? Is this what rain is like? The water is hot and scalds her skin. It feels like burning, like a new type of fire. Some of it lands on her lips and it tastes wrong, like vinegar almost, nothing like water she’s had before. Should rain hurt?

“Your Majesty!” the Colonel yells. “It’s acid rain! You must seek cover.” 

Another bolt, and the men run across the stricken land to where Tasha is crouching. Seek cover where? 

She’s debating whether to make for the pond or the hills when it happens. The ground splits, like it’s been cut by a machine, and out spills an impossibly large worm, some great beast with antlers instead of eyes. It comes tearing from the soil not fifty feet from her. It undulates across the sand, roaring all the while.

The men panic anew and her husband clambers to the top of the ruined jumper, as if that will do any good. The worm seems drawn to their noise, or maybe it’s just drawn to the jumper. Tasha isn’t sure what logic giant worms possess, if any. She’s still sitting there, immobile from fright, as the rain pelts down on her, burning everywhere it touches. Some areas of the suit have started to give out under the pressure, and it's here that the rain burns.

The giant worm reaches the group and opens its toothy maw wide. Its jaw unfolds like a creature from her nightmares, and she can only wordlessly watch as it swallows up the pilot, then reaches back down for a mouthful of soldiers. Their screams are gobbled up.

She is frozen in place. She can’t move even if she wants to: the terror has her stuck like a statue. She thinks it is her stillness that has kept the worm oblivious to her. It has no eyes that she can see, so it must be blind. It lives underground, else their scans would have picked it up, and it must come up to feed. It has never had a snack quite so tasty as humans.

It finishes off the rest of the men, though they shoot at it with useless bullets. It’s just seasoning, Tasha thinks wildly, as they die in turn until only the King is left. How nice, she thinks, to leave him ‘til last.

“Natasha!” he yells. “Help me!”

She doesn’t respond for fear of the worm noticing her, but her heart does go out to him. She has never intended this. She meant for it to be quick, painless, a kindness of a sort. She hates him, but not like this. 

She feels fuzzy around the edges. Maybe it’s the shock, but she can barely breathe. She is dizzy, and she wonders: can you fall if you’re already sitting down?

Once he’s gone, once the worm has eaten his pitiful body, it loses interest. It rolls itself back across the sand with its huge muscles. It is redder now, flushed with blood. Must be the meal. It curls itself left then right, and Tasha thinks of soldiers marching in time. What must they be thinking aboard the Cvilidreta? Surely rescue will come soon.

That’s what she’ll do. She’ll keep quiet and await the rescue ship. They’ll come with weapons to destroy the sand worm or, if there are more of them, they’ll leave this planet and never look back. She need only wait. She is the Queen after all. 

The worm retraces its steps back to its subterranean lair, its tail licking through the air before disappearing beneath the sand. It leaves behind it a trail of slime on the ground, lubricant made to aid its travel through the dirt below.

She waits. She thinks of Ellie in those precious few days before Rumpelstiltskin spirited her away. She thinks of the pain of the milk drying up too soon. Does Ellie miss her bodily too? It must be the shock but she aches for her daughter.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she calls into the stillness, mindful of the worm. “Rumpelstiltskin. I’ve done it, I did what you asked. He’s dead. You can come back now. Bring my princess back.” Rightful Queen now, Tasha supposes. That’s how these sorts of things work, isn’t it? That’s why Rumpelstiltskin agreed to help her in the first place; he wants his puppet monarch, a child conditioned to love him as a daughter might.

He’d told her he would hear her, no matter where he was in the universe. He said he’d hear her call and come running, simple as that. It’s magic. His name is charmed, even in the depths of space.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she says again, a third cry into the sky. The rain lets up, and she is grateful for it. There are sore marks on her cheeks where the acid has streamed. It will take days to heal, she thinks, but it doesn’t matter now. 

The air crackles with something other than electricity. The world around her folds itself inward, until there is a sudden pop, like a suction cup releasing, and then he stands before her in all his glory: half her height, a thin little thing, black hair gone crazy with the static, that damnable grin on his delighted face. He laughs, and it sounds like a song, like a taunt. He raises one eyebrow in question, and she feels the answer fill her with dread, but then there is the thought of Ellie.

“Where’s my daughter?” she asks.

“No ‘hello’?” His voice is squeaky, like a door in need of oil.

She sighs. Was he always this infuriating? “Hello,” she forces a smile. “Where’s my child?”

“She’s safe. Safer than you, at any rate,” he gestures at the scene of destruction that surrounds them. “I’ll call for her when we reboard the ship.”

Wise, she thinks. He must have to be wise, to be so sneaky. Not so wise that she did not overhear his name, though.

“Whatever happened here?” he asks, and she laughs, because there isn't much else she can do. She thinks of Ellie,  _ Ellie, _ her sweet little Ellie, and thinks:  _ soon _ .


End file.
